Healdy,

Welcome!

What a lovely thing to make for someone! No doubt it will be cherished and appreciated.

The size of your pattern is dependent on several factors, such as yarn type, hook size, and gauge.

My suggestion would be to look for a bulky or super bulky yarn, perhaps something like a very sturdy rug yarn, which will hold up to the wear and tear of being trampled on the floor year round. Your hook should be suitable for the yarn you choose, and with a bulky or super bulky yarn, you'll want to use a large hook.

Once you decide on your yarn and hook, the next step would be to crochet a swatch, to determine your gauge. Depending on your gauge, it may be very possible to make something that fits within the free parameters here; matter of fact, if your yarn/hook/gauge are large enough, something in the Premier area like 300 or 500 stitches will likely be way too large, as just a few stitches will go a very long way!

The one drawback is a very bulky yarn may not have as many color choices available, though if you pick a simpler pattern, that likely won't matter.

Healdy,

You're so welcome!

Aran weight will need more stitches than a bulky or super bulky. If your chosen pattern is small enough, you could compensate by doubling your yarn.

If you're going to use the yarn singly, I would suggest the smallest to go is an H hook (UK size 6, metric 4.75/5mm) and, depending on how tightly you crochet, toward the upper end of a K hook (UK size 2, metric 6.5/7). You might be able to go larger (though if you're in the UK, I've read that sizes don't go larger than that, not sure if it's true?) if you crochet very tightly.

The bottom line, though, is whatever I might recommend, you still need your hook size to be comfortable for you, and if a smaller than H or larger than K works for you, that's what you should use. (Sadly, sometimes newer designers will recommend too-small hooks and gauges that make it difficult to crochet comfortably.)

This is the main reason why, when you find a pattern you want to make (particularly a garment or something that needs to be a certain size when finished), a gauge swatch beforehand is so vital. Once you know your gauge, you can try different hook sizes to get the gauge recommended by the pattern's author.

If gauge isn't critical to you (such as this rug project), you might be okay without a swatch, though I still don't recommend it, because you probably want to know that the finished size isn't going to be way too small or large.

When you do make this rug or anything else, feel free to share pictures of your work here, so we can drool!

Healdy,

You're so very welcome!

If you're following a chart, unless it's a published chart and says otherwise, I would recommend single crochet. If you're making your own chart with the freePatternWizard, we call it a "standard stitch," which is single crochet, but we call it "standard" to allow for people in the UK, who use the term double crochet in place of single crochet. Hope that isn't confusing!

Healdy,

Sorry to be confusing! A single crochet in the US is exactly the same thing as a double crochet in the UK. So using your terminology, the stitch you'll be using is a double crochet. Lol, I don't know why there's such a difference!